This unpretentious little book of meditations based on Scripture, ancient hymns, and writings from Church Fathers will nourish the souls of reflective seekers during the forty-day period of Great Lent. Authors of each meditation have delved deeply into the sins and shortcomings of their own hearts, enabling readers to share in a collective human experience-from darkness to light, from despair to hope, and from isolation to commonality in the body of Christ-as they move steadily toward our Lord's Resurrection. The first edition of this book (titled A Journey through Great Lent, edited and authored by Archpriest Steven John Belonick, with coauthors Michele Constable and Michael Soroka), was published by Light & Life Publishing in 1998.

Idleness. Apathy. Restlessness. Procrastination. These are symptoms, of what early Christian theologians called despondency (acedia), a spiritual sickness rooted in a lack of care or effort. A condition as old as the ancients, despondency thrives in today¿s culture of leisure, anxiety, and digital distraction. Time and Despondency is a penetrating synthesis of ancient theology, spiritual memoir, and self-help practicality. It envisions despondency as the extension of a broken relationship with the experience of time. Driven by the fear of death and the anxiety of living, despondency drives us to abandon the present moment, forsaking the only temporal realm in which we have true fellowship with Christ. The remedies offered by time-honored Christian thinkers for this predicament constitute not only an antidote to despondency but also stepping stones back to the present moment. In regaining the sacredness of time, we re-encounter the Resurrection of Christ in the dark and restless moments of our lives.

Based on the Jesus prayer, "The Pilgrim's Tale" is the most famous example of Russian Orthodox spiritual literature. The volume is particularly important because this translation is based on the original manuscript, as opposed to many other current versions which are based on existing translations.

The Lenten Triodion exhorts us, "Let us observe a fast acceptable and pleasing to the Lord." Using hymns from the Triodion and the Scripture readings appointed for the season, Meditations for Great Lent shows us how to make our fast acceptable: to fast not only from food but from sin; to fast with love and humility, as a means to an end and not an end in itself. Keep this gem of a book with you to inspire you for the Fast and to dip into for encouragement as you pursue your Lenten journey.

Traditionally, the Orthodox Church has appointed forty days of rest and seclusion after childbirth for mothers to recover from the rigors of birth and get to know their new babies. In the modern world, it can be difficult to understand how to use this time to the fullest in the way it was intended. The authors of A Sacred Beginning-a therapist and a pediatrician who are both mothers themselves-come to the rescue with a resource that addresses the spiritual, emotional, and physical aspects of a mother's recovery from birth and embarkation on her new life. Whether you are preparing to birth your first baby or your tenth, you will find in this book a wealth of spiritual food, comfort, encouragement, and sound advice to guide you, one postpartum day at a time.

This is the first full-length study of the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, Montaigne, Margurite de Navarre, Erasmus, Petrarch, Augustine, and Gregory of Nyssa. Wes Williams undertakes a bold exploration of various interlinking themes in Renaissance pilgrimage: the location, representation, and politics of the sacred, together with the experience of the everyday, the extraordinary, the religious, and the represented. Williams also examines the literary formation of the subjective narrative voice in his texts, and its relationship to the rituals and practices he reviews. This wide-ranging and timely new work aims both to gain a sense of the shapes of pilgrim experience in the Renaissance and to question the ways in which recent theoretical and historical research in the area has determined the differences between fictional worlds and the real.

Pregnancy is not just a trek from one medical appointment to another but a journey of the heart. Here at last is a guidebook through its sacred terrain. For each week, Orthodox doula Laura Jansson provides a new reflection on a theme specific to the ground covered at that stage. From one milestone to the next, she helps us unearth the spiritual treasures buried within the physical experiences of childbearing. These are gifts of love from a merciful God who reaches out to us, making a perilous expedition into a path of salvation.